I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?' That is a hard question,' said Candide.

He broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events and emphasized customs social history and achievements in the arts and sciences. Fearing an indefinite prison sentence Voltaire suggested that he be exiled to England as an alternative punishment which the French authorities accepted. Nevertheless he continued to write producing essays and historical studies.

[clarification needed] As a satirical polemicist he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance religious dogma and the French institutions of his day. Voltaire was a versatile writer producing works in almost every literary form including plays poems novels essays and historical and scientific works. swa ma.